The Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project gene disruption project: Single P-element insertions mutating 25% of vital drosophila genes

A fundamental goal of genetics and functional genomics is to identify and m utate every gene in model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster. The Be rkeley Drosophila Genome Project (BDGP) gene disruption project generates s ingle P-element insertion strains that each mutate unique genomic open read ing frames. Such strains strongly facilitate further genetic and molecular studies of the disrupted loci, but it has remained unclear if P elements ca n be used to mutate all Drosophila genes. We now report that the primary co llection has grown to contain 1045 strains that disrupt more than 25% of th e estimated 3600 Drosophila genes that are essential for adult viability. O f these P insertions, 67% have been verified by genetic tests to cause the associated recessive mutant phenotypes, and the validity of most of the rem aining lines is predicted on statistical grounds. Sequences flanking >920 i nsertions have been determined to exactly position them in the genome and t o identify 376 potentially affected transcripts from collections of EST seq uences. Strains in the BDGP collection are available from the Bloomington S tock Center and have already assisted the research community in characteriz ing >250 Drosophila genes. The likely identity of 131 additional genes in t he collection is reported here. Our results show that Drosophila genes have a wide range of sensitivity to inactivation by P elements, and provide a r ationale for greatly expanding the BDGP primary collection based entirely o n insertion site sequencing. We predict that this approach can bring >85% o f all Drosophila open reading frames under experimental control.